Serde Atalay

This editorial introduces the Special Section on 'The Borders Within: Socio-Economic Rights and Non-discrimination in EU Law' whose purpose is to provide a comprehensive and non-fragmented understanding of socio-economic rights, the right to non-discrimination and their meaning for welfare in EU Member States. Under EU law the boundaries between national socio-economic policies and the enjoyment of socio-economic rights by non-citizens become blurred. This is due to the complicated link between EU and national social policy, the operation of national policies against the background of EU social objectives as well as the different categories of non-citizens entitled to EU social rights (among which are also EU citizens). The editorial introduces the contributions of this Special Section which engage with non-discrimination between nationals of a Member State and EU citizens resident in that Member State, nationals of a Member State and third-country nationals, as well as EU citizens resident in a host Member State and third-country nationals resident in that Member State. The changing comparisons and the different limitations accepted as legitimate shape a complicated picture of the borders between insiders and outsiders in EU law as regards accessing socio-economic rights. In conclusion the editorial highlights the multilevel tension which characterises the attribution and limitation of socio-economic rights in the EU. Such rights are caught between the universal aspiration of equal treatment, the limitations imposed by concerns over migration as well as the demands imposed by financial solidarity within and between the Member States, and social justice aspirations at the collective EU level.